Hi all, I'm looking for some input about how you great people think about magic in RPGs. I'm about to run the final session of Dragons of Stormwreck Isle (D&D introductory adventure) but the question applies in any game involving magic, I think. Basically my players need to stop a ritual being conducted by the bbeg (young dragon who wants huge power) who is drawing magic from this island steeped in arcane power, from the Dragon Star reaching its zenith, and from ancient incantations. The cap is the sacrifice of a young, good dragon the PC's are trying to rescue. The setup is great: approaching midnight on a rocky spire jutting out of the ocean, an array of dragon statues and bones are carefully arrayed in a detailed pattern around the victim hidden in a stone pit. I see it as lit by torches at first, but as the ritual starts and the bbeg gathers power into the circle, there will be glows and crackles of lightning and arcane energy bursting all around. A ritual caster has to gather and control power for some time before releasing it into their spell. The rules in d&d are lacklustre about stopping a ritual, though: "if the ritual is disrupted, the spell that is being cast fails". Hardly dramatic. Of course, now they would have a frustrated bbeg mad at them, but - - meh. My feeling is that with a bunch of power being manipulated in a big ritual, interrupting it should be dangerous for everybody involved, not just the caster but also the disruptor, victim, bystanders,.... And the danger should increase the longer the ritual goes on before it's broken. So I'm wondering if anyone has handled things like this or if you have ideas about it. I'm thinking about possible mechanics for determining outcomes, wild magic effects, damage spread - anything to make this more clutch, dramatic and fun. PS I've already laid the groundwork with a smaller ritual used to destroy a cursed object earlier in the adventure, so the players will be expecting this.

Proactive Roleplaying is "The Natural End Point of Roleplaying" - Kenneth Hite

I've been thinking about beginner - expert scaling of classes and backgrounds for role play and collaborative storytelling. The gist is I think some classes/background/backstory choices can bake in both a connection between mechanics and roleplay and/or support group play. Other choices such as the loner rogue have a tradition of being problematic. I wonder if the structure of table talk in proactive gaming is ideal for allowing the more challenging or problematic choices to work in a group game. (e.g. untrusting loner, antisocial hermit, sneaky rogue that wanders off, rogue that steals stuff, warlock that made a deal with the devil, or Sam Riegels always afraid scout Snyx in Age of Umbra).

A little more vague than I usually talk about, but I've been reading a lot of Jon Peterson's historical D&D books (Matt Colville has this great video about "The Elusive Shift") and there more I read, and then talk with people about it, the more I feel that no one has an identical opinion on what a role playing game is, or many of the subjects that go along with it are. I'm pretty in favor of that---it's part of what makes the hobby so unique---but I do think it's interesting to compare notes. My favorite might be "what is the role of the GM?" I've seen (and participated in) a ton of discussions about it, and my opinion has changed a ton over the years, so I'm excited to hear what people's takes are. The GM has plenty of jobs---when I was younger, I was a big fan of Matt Colville's "the GM needs to make the players believe in the world" refrain I heard in a lot of his videos. I still do like that a lot, but as I've played and run more games, I mostly think about how a GM can facilitate the fun for the group. In my favorite way to play (although it isn't the preference of every group I run for) the GM's primary job is to create fun situations for a story that surprise everyone, including themself. But there's lots of little things I could add on to that! There's probably never going to be a perfect summary, and it's totally different depending on the type of game you want to run. What do you feel like your primary job is when you're running? Do you think that's different from what "the GM's" job should be, more broadly?

GenCon is coming up in just a few months (will anyone from this group be there? Let's meet up) and all the GMs are hard at work working out the details of what they'll be running for the masses. I have never run a game at a con (next year, maybe). My games tend to be years-long, elaborate, overwrought, etc. So there's something very romantic to me about the idea of writing a 3-hour scenario that other GMs will pick up and run. It would have to be a perfect little Swiss Army knife of tools and mechanics that anyone could run without explanation, the layout would have to be readable and compact, the premise would have to be interesting, etc. And all that sounds pretty tough to write. But we had a chance to sit down with Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan recently (who is my favorite adventure designer of all time and I think should be seriously in the running for the best to do it) and ask him how he writes convention games. He's been doing it for about 25 years now, so he's a font of knowledge. He was kind enough to share with us a PDF resource that I think you'll all find interesting. It's his guide for writing convention-style games, but I found a lot to learn from it about designing sessions of play. In it, he talks about planning on a 3-hour time block, which scenes to include (and which ones to cut), the dynamics at play in the party and the character group, and how to get the party involved in the action. Some of it is only relevant for cons, sure, but I think a lot of it will be helpful for GMs trying to write tighter and more action-packed sessions. Check it out: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/wh3tlhs7fmpytfm6kpm7f/How-to-Write-Con-Scenarios-the-Gar-Hanrahan-way.pdf?rlkey=mgzmjl7gbx1fbmsu8loafeha5&e=1&dl=0